Citizen action gets results

Spurred by a Sierra Club lawsuit, Texaco has agreed
to prevent further contamination of the North Platte River by its
defunct oil refinery near Casper, Wyo. If the EPA and Justice
Department approve the consent decree next month, Texaco must clean
up the river, report monthly to the Sierra Club, and step up
efforts to keep pollution from reaching the river in the first
place. According to the Sierra Club, at least 55 tons of petroleum
products reach the river yearly, and an EPA test revealed adverse
effects for larvae and other invertebrates, the base of the river's
food chain. In a precedent-setting case, Sierra Club lawyers
successfully argued that groundwater contamination flowing into a
river constituted a "point source" and therefore was subject to the
Clean Water Act, rather than the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act governing groundwater (HCN, 11/29/93). "The section of the
Clean Water Act that allows citizens to sue polluters is a
godsend," says Earline Hittel, a North Platte Sierra Club member.
Tom Davis, another Sierra Club member, says the state and the EPA
were lax with Texaco. The Sierra Club took on the case after Davis
and his wife found oil globs bubbling up to the river's surface
while canoeing.